Abstract

Current literature on the "learning to teach" process has tended to concentrate more on the student teaching than on the early introductory phases of the process. This qualitative study investigates the growth and change statements described in students' final reflective essays of a course designed to introduce them to the complexities of teaching. The emphasis is on conceptual change and the developing schema students construct during an introductory course, Classroom Processes and Instruction. The study consisted of three phases of analysis. The first was of the course components mentioned by the students as having affected, in some way, their growth or change during the course. The second was an analysis of the students' style and quality of written expression: The Level of their writing as determined by the amount of support they offered for their statements; the Perspective they used to organize their writing, either by theme or by course component; the Mode they used to express themselves, either personal or impersonal; and the View they took of the experience, either ego/self, student, or sociocultural. The third phase was an analysis of the character of the growth and change statements made by four exemplars, one from each of the four writing Levels. Results of the study demonstrated the interconnectedness and cyclical nature of all course components; field work, guided reflective writing, experiential, and interactive classroom opportunities. Comparisons of the students' writing showed progressions in all areas, from simple to complex. Less skilled writers tended to write in impersonal modes and to see the experience from an ego/self view. More advanced writers tended to organized their reflections around thematic perspectives, to write in personal modes, and to view their experiences with their future students in mind. Patterns of preservice student development, as indicated by the four exemplars, varied from concrete to abstract, from learning about teaching as technique to learning about the concepts of teaching and about themselves as teachers. A number of issues are raised relative to the findings that showed more older non-traditional students, more Hispanic students, and more elementary majors in the lower writing levels.

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